The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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44 THE DRAWINGS OF MICHELANGELO AND HIS FOLLOWERS IN THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM

18 0. Nothing seems to be known about Jeremiah Harman’s

“Michelangelo” drawings, which Woodburn added to those from

Lawrence. Harman was active as a collector of paintings, and these

drawings, none of which has a traceable provenance prior to his

ownership, were probably a secondary interest. None of those

that came to Oxford (Cats. 60 , 89 , 98 , 99 )isofhigh quality,

although none is without interest. A fifth drawing, then thought to

be by Michelangelo (184 6– 21 )was subsequently given to Baccio

Bundimelli (P. II 77 ).

Attention may be drawn here to the very different interpretation

of much of the evidence treated in this chapter and in the appen-

dices, which was provided by Perrig, 1999 , who proposes that the

majority of drawings generally believed to come from Casa Buonar-

roti are in fact minor drawings, mostly by Giulio Clovio, from the

collection of the King of Naples (the former Farnese Collection),

which Wicar would have obtained in the 1790 s, and to which he

and Woodburn attached false provenances. Perrig further suggests

that other worthless Farnese drawings were dispersed c. 1600 , and

that some of these then entered Casa Buonarroti, to be themselves

dispersed c. 1800 ,falsely as Michelangelos. This reconstruction of

events – perverse to the highest degree – is based only on negatives,

is unsupported by any positive evidence, assumes every mistaken

provenance supplied by Woodburn to reveal conspiracy, and, finally,

is prompted by, and rests on acceptance of, Perrig’s connoisseur-

ship, expressed in his demotion of most Michelangelo drawings to

the status of copies or imitations, or in his allocation of them to

other draughtsmen, reattributions nowhere supported by sustained

comparison with drawings genuinely by those other draughtsmen.

Perrig’s views remain isolated and are accepted by no serious stu-

dent of Michelangelo’s draughtsmanship. This is not the place for

an extended discussion of the article of 1999 , nor would it be

worthwhile, but it might be useful to signal some of its more fun-

damental omissions: silence about the copies by Andrea Commodi

and Francesco Buonarroti, about the Cicciaporci Collection, and

about the sales by Ottley and the testimony provided in his sale

catalogues.